News

Apple keeps iPad 2 in lineup, pulls 3rd-gen iPad

While Apple has kept the iPad 2 in its lineup, it has surprisingly pulled the third-generation iPad from its online store in the U.S. after today’s announcement of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad.

The store now shows the iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPad with Retina display — however, the latter is the fourth-generation iPad, essentially replacing the third-generation iPad entirely. For the time being, Apple is selling off refurbished third-generation iPads in its refurbished section of the Apple Store; it’s unclear how and when it will discount the remaining stock of new third-generation models.

Comments

1

is the profit margin on the 3rd gen ipad too small at $399 to justify selling it at that price? doesn’t make sense to buy an ipad 2 over ipad mini if the only thing it does better is the screen size (mini ppi is higher). MIni has LTE option and Siri among other features.

Posted by P Tomlinson on October 23, 2012 at 3:37 PM (CDT)

1

they kept the ipad 2 for people who wanted the ipad mini price, but a bigger screen. and apparently the profit is too small, considering the 3rd and 4th gen are almost exactly the same

Posted by m on October 23, 2012 at 4:47 PM (CDT)

1

Replacing iPad 3rd gen is just a way to force buyers to buy new connector cords which must be very profitable items..

Posted by B on October 24, 2012 at 11:19 AM (CDT)

1

It seems that Apple is going to stay away from the numeric iterations of the iPad line. They are setting it up along the lines of the Mac offerings (MacBook Air is just MacBook Air, iMac is just iMac…no matter how many generations they release). Which makes sense in that they simply moved on from the 3rd gen to the 4th. They are the same offering with a few tweaks. No Need to keep both on the market. The iPad 2 has quite a bit of different tech and is being kept in the lineup as a somewhat low priced option. The iPad Mini will fill another nitch with “enhanced” iPad 2 tech at a (still a bit too high) $329 entry point.

As for the switch to a Lightning connector in the latest iPad offerings, It only makes sense to bring as many products up to the new Apple standard as soon as they can. It is not an optimal situation to have numerous products on the shelf that use different cords. I am actually a bit surprised that they left the iPad 2 with a 30-pin connector. If I am going to have an iPhone 5 (I do) and a new Touch or iPad/iPad Mini (I do not…yet), I would prefer to have one cable type to lug around.

Posted by Mitch on October 24, 2012 at 12:48 PM (CDT)

1

This is a ridiculous move. Now, anyone wanting a retina iPad will have to deal with being able to buy next-to-no peripherals. How utterly stupid. I used to paise iPad’s amazing musical flexibility, but then they go and stick two fingers up to all peripheral developers such as Akai and IK Multimedia. What a dick move.

Posted by Jo Martin-Kelly on October 24, 2012 at 1:13 PM (CDT)

1

@3: Sadly, I suspect this is somewhat accurate. Mostly, of course, they pushed out this update to the full sized iPad this fall instead of Spring because Amazon is about to release their competitor to the full sized iPad for a solid $200 less and they needed to have something to claim parity/superiority for your two Benjamins, but the cabling scheme is not to be ignored. At $19 for the basic cable, $29 for just a dongle adapter, and $39 for the adapter + short cable, and not of one of them representing more than $0.50 BOM, they are generating huge amounts of free profit from pushing lightning as fast as they can.